Pieces of Dark.

My shadow moors me like an anchor,

Spins infinite circles-

Runs me aground.

Ticks the stories off the hurried seconds,

Becomes time itself-

Wrinkles my brow.

Sets the sun to race the horizon,

Drowns it in darkness-

Immures me in itself.

Retrieves a sallow moon from the night,

Dots the sky with stars-

Reminisces dawn.

Burdens me to sift through dreams,

Prowls on a tight leash-

Breaks into a sweat.

Tears future’s drape of ‘morrow,

Scrambles present in a bag-

Mixes it with past.

Silently awaits its ritual immolation,

Quivers against me imperceptibly-

Bleeds pieces of dark.

Marking Time.

The all seeing eye has been replaced

By all telling ones

A mutual supposition exists

In the illicit delight of life

Where the flea market of yearning

Bids in sundry moments

Romancing longing

In kisses clandestine,

For future's paths do backward find

Coming back to waiting time

Time, whose revolving doors

Blur me out, and in

Shadows scurrying in circles

Drawing our sighing reliefs

On tessellated pavements

Where arching shadows become sundials

That singularly trace

The lonesome march of listless skies

And a solitary blind eye

Bright…

Origami

Don’t fold my letters love

The crinkling creases

Opportune opine

And make vagrant fate lines

To wrinkle my passions

Adding strange character

To the lonesome conversations

Before you read; So instead

I’ve brought your favourite scissors

The rusty one that would creak

Its sombre disapproval

Every time we brought its blades together

To make love                  

But by then we had learnt

That scissors better paper better

Than the quaint stains of ink

When it comes to our sort of art

For its consummate ease

To tenderly trace

Each line, shape and letter

And variously spout

Words, images and clatter

Like from a magician’s hat

Making me always

The confetti of your dreams

To fill and set afloat

In the garden of balloons

Where taciturn gravity

Would embrace my element

To whisper gently the translation

Repeating the hope of words long lost

Remembering your existentialist hobby

Of twisting parchments

Into paper boats set sail

Upon stormy rivulets

That soaked in their souls

Disintegrating it to shreds

And swallowing it whole…

Syntax.

i hold the warmth closer

It seems a memory past

That though has done the distance

Yet remembers the kiln

That stoked its embers sweet

Its honey dripping lips

Bidding farewell

That keeps nostalgia still

Bleeding its red art

Sparkling like bits of sand

That now breathe of

Mortar and concrete

Dreams that spent life recalling

How the hungry waves

Had fed at every hour

Every minute, and so on

Because now you realize

That how an echo howls

And keeps the dialogue going

But with itself

For though crashing they are

And coursing as they scream

A faltering drop of blue

Like some grim punctuation

Hanging in space

Inhaling the vacuum;

Exhale.

Blue Blooded

i wash my face in the mirror

And watch in its million drops

Reflections warped to behold

Or another mask Rorschach

The ink lay panting spilt

On white reams untouched

The strands soaking by turns

Immuring obscurity of facts

And out came rushing tumbling

With emptiness the words

Their shells a hollow cocoon

Of dreams that diaphanous were

That glistened in my harsh gaze

Like a rainbow painted bubbles

Pricking the sun.

i watch them drift asunder

In the flickering strands of breeze

That leaves me gasping again

For my claustrophobic reverie

That chokes me bit by bit

To squeeze the remnants of-

A splattered day, a chance meeting

And all those voiceless thoughts

That kept piling in a corner quiet

Because i never knew where

Does solitude of the world seep

To but sprout its tendrils here;

Here where the variegated moss

Of your life en-homes my dungeons

Seeping in its quaint moisture

And draws its hopeless art.

The Colour Red

It shall be the happiness after tomorrow,

Perhaps;

Let off by some sigh, but

The wind here grows only stronger,

And sun’s scattered beams,

Take leaves red and rub their sallow,

So now they must gleam green;

Watching us with orphan eyes,

As we sit suspended together,

Unsure;

If dusk would spill its secret dust,

Or would it be just the two of us,

Our mutual darkness;

And a ceremonious incense,

That just wouldn’t light.

There’s a fire raging below,

Like a red gash from a scimitar;

Bleeding black earth,

Burning the sky,

And filling our caress with tender smoke;

I look up distracted,

And find its careless smudge-

A crescent moon that barely breathes,

A crimson drop incompleting the horizon;

I taste a familiar tinge that drowns,

All the other bleeding senses out,

A drowning vortex of vertigo,

Calls an unfamiliar name to echo;

That, and the many uses,

Of the colour red.

Jabbertalkies

The day’s streaks are getting long,

Motion blur, i am informed

Add to that a certain curve,

That upon itself would turn upon,

And swirling whirls will tumble forth,

To eddies made to greater form,

And rise like tides of a full-ish moon,

Or better still our global warmth,
Thawing life in ice trapped,
Letting pipers escape the gates of dawn,

Who come to me to rue their ruse,

But come to leave and be ever gone,

For trapped in dreams of a dying man,

Life devours, what it does yawn,

It’s rather black this heart of man,

And denial's days are rather long,

A slip down the memory lane

And eternal’s paused the moment wrong.

The Waiting Room.

Waiting is acknowledgement
A realisation of denial
Introspection that does silent watch
The puppets play in the lawns outside
Their light strings like shining smiles
Painted plastered so they never knew
The parched songs that hum our lives
You can pick up it's groaning buzz
A disquietude that runs along
Palpitations that on pavements walk
Measuring time and it's seconds brief
Weaving along; in webs coy homes
To be united is to be lost.

Asphyxia.

Cigarette smoking is injurious to health
The sullen sun scoffs the fumes
That like smoke signals spoke
Filling empty clouds
With my love
Messenger messiah
All in vain
Like little boats that drowned last night
There was a storm upon the sea I heard.

A Vicarious Kind.

A vicarious play
Of light is life
And i learnt from life
That all is mime
Education;
It may be opined
But words are short
When so is time
And moments thus
Must laden find
To walk forward
A step must be left
Behind.

The Scream

Fetch me a scream-

But that later,

The melancholy has blown,

The tears into the eyes,

Hiding, suspicious;

Pearls peering errata ,

Words that you guessed like autotype,

And completed my dreams,

I resent

This arbitrary completeness,

This sense of whole-

To fill my empty universe,

You but emptied your own,

And now i don’t have place,

To shuffle my feet,

That your defiling thoughts,

Do glumly grope,

While memories drag,

Just  silent along,

Parched, hungry;

A quiet desperation,

It’s hard to scream,

When you don’t have the words.

Sleepwalking

i caught a sunbeam,

And bent it slight;

Swirled a world,

To set it right,

And let it flake;

Since stirred was quite,

To swim moments,

In the sea of light,

That coloured too;

Was much so bright,

But i just picked,

Some blurring flight,

That grey seemed most;

But what of life,

Its a prism more,

If bent to sight,

That looks indoors,

When dreams do quiet,

Silent tiptoe,

To wake for night...

By Invitation Only.


The window blurts-
An old invite,
Before dawn yawns,
Its sun outside.

Dark, drag me more,
Into the night,
Its filled too much,
Of endless sight.

That wakes again;
In closen sighes,
That live in deep,
In listless eyes.

And sits like wisps,
To gather quiet,
And fill my mind,
With passions slight.

For dreams to rise,
And for moments fight;
And bear no more,
Nostalgia's spite.

And look at world,
As if it might,
Roll in sleep,
And take to flight;

Which tired eyes,
Do daily right,
In waking days,
To seldom write-

That how this play,
Of dark and light,
Some living call;
But i most despise.

The Metamorphosis

Like a voice backstage,
In a movie scene,
That merely says,
Dont be seen;
While the music plays,
A sombre theme,
And curtains tug,
At sundry scenes,
That hurl themselves,
At vicarious beings,
Who pay for touch,
From virtual beams,
For cost of flesh,
Is a living dream;
To see no more,
That most do deem,
To caccooned corners,
We take our gleam,
And feed our hopes,
That hungry seem,
To rip our limbs,
In tender dreams,
And winged fly,
To what have beens;
Before the shrieks,
Come waking scream,
And back to life,
As crawling beings...

Frozen Dreams

Frozen dreams-

Do slowly thaw,

As slip moments,

Now tender, raw

Whilst congeals;

That living flaw,

To be undone,

What we saw...

Icarus, Rise.

Below rainbows,

That coloured seem;

Lie monochromes,

That rattle dreams.

And ramble hopes,

To secret gleam,

And whisper most,

To lie unseen.

So icarus turned,

To the lonely eye,

Whose burning words,

Just whispered “Fly”.

No homely roof,

Those barren skies,

That laid back look,

At flailing sighs;

That swim listless,

For what had been,

Blue seamless,

Is but a sheen-

Fierce golden,

That looks so keen,

Like eternal flames,

That none do mean;

For falling, flying;

Are one it seems,

When moments merge,

In drowning beams.

That burst open,

At crowded seams,

To lay to rest,

Begotten dreams.

The Daily Fret;Stanza 11.

Near Life Experiences.

A momentary pause;

It seemed to me,

And moments paused;

Can for ever be.

And in this stream,

That flows between,

Two pauses such,

That much do seem.

Indifferent strangers,

Whose wait does lean,

In frequent glances,

 As if the gleam-

Of ticking hands,

Of time would deem,

How near life,

This leap had been...

The Purple Sunbird,Cinnyris asiaticus.

The Daily Fret; Stanza 10

Cul-de-sacs

Cul-de-sacs

In shadows lie

Awaiting light

To rub their eyes

Dry

Brick and mortar

Strained from rote

Minds numb

And voices

Hoarse

Fickle beams

Through journeys dogged

Visions become

For someone

Touched

An absence

In silence mute

Stands unseen

Biding grains to run or

Fly

Cul de sacs

The mortar and brick

Tickle beams fickle

An absent game

Shadows laze

Their memories jogged

Their journeys dogged

Voices mute do not talk

Light descend

On thoughts dismayed

That dream no more

And will fade away

Eyes are home

To what darkness calls

Proof of life

The waiting game

That words in sand

Would talking thus

Hold handsFrom dust to dust

The Daily Fret;Stanza 9

Bargains rushed

Memories sifting,

Often tore-

Dreams too old,

To let it pour.

To heart absolving,

In a loving whore;

Who takes it all,

Like another lore.

With sidelong glances,

At half closed doors,

And absent stares,

At mostly floors.

Where scattered lives,

Like rags from chores,

Do passing fret,

For passions sore.

But bargains rushed,

Do rest best sure;

For love's price,

Is a little more…

The Daily Fret;Stanza 8

Metaphors

Vagrant ways-

Are ever sought,

And fancy words,

For random thoughts;

In glances scattered,

That meet do not,

But thrown enough,

Like little sparks.

In life's alleys,

That grim and stark,

To speeding lives,

Do seem a lot;

Like a blur most,

Where seems the past,

And future's rush,

On headlong paths-

Where traffic corners,

Scream yellow dots,

From red smug ,

That green so sought;

For winking sly;

Our games are fraught,

In dot to dots,

Or cross and naughts…

The Daily Fret; Stanza 7.

Black & White

 

Fates shards,

Like rolling dice,

Were brilliant laid,

Black on white.

That coloured life’s,

Own seething light;

Myriad hues ,

That bled did bright.

And shone in too,

So much that night,

Did pleasant stage,

The drama slight.

Of flitting shadows,

Across the screen,

A flickering image,

From a movie reel.

With crackled sound,

From a radio beam,

That streamed a story,

Of what has been.

A fiction once,

That history seemed;

That told much tales,
To be redeemed;

In sundry rhymes,

In virtual streams,

In chatting man,

In divine dreams…